A Homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Lewisburg, PA, for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, Feb. 19, 7532 [March 3, 2024 on the civil calendar]

Prodigal comes from a Latin root meaning wasteful.

Time is a gift from God, the time of our lives. Yet how wasteful we can be of it, as was the Prodigal Son.

The Church Fathers in their invaluable teachings of the Orthodox Christian tradition suggest there are a few different ways to think about time, all simultaneous in our lives on earth. There is the natural time of the seasons and stars and plants and animals. There is the human time of our society and our cell phones. There is the eternal time of those beings created eternal, such as angels and demons and the human soul. And then there is the non-time or beyond time of God, including of His uncreated energies or grace that touch and form and redeem our lives.

Truly as Scripture says, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. We have even today, then, a thousand years through God’s grace to change our lives in repentance, as did the Prodigal Son, with God’s grace, as we prepare for our journey through Lent to Pascha and the Resurrection of our Lord.

The account of the Prodigal Son is concerned in part with the legacy of property.  Blessed Theophylact in his commentary observes that God gives to each of us, as our inheritance or property, our logos. Logos is a Greek word that most commonly is translated word but can have the meaning also of reason or language, purpose, story, connector, harmony, and even natural law. The Prodigal Son had that precious gift of the logos of the Logos, the word of the divine Word that animated him. This is his real property or wealth from God, his belongings in the deepest sense, yet he abuses and discards it.

We are created according to the image of God, in Christ the Logos, as Scripture tells us. So, all Creation also is in the Logos, Christ.  To fulfill our logos, drawing on St Maximus the Confessor, is to realize ourselves as human beings in the image and likeness of God. This relates to theosis or becoming one with God’s grace, His energies, which can be seen as articulated in the logos or story that God gives to each of us to unfold as ourselves in unity with Him and His Church.

So, the Prodigal Son at first rejected not only the gift of reason but his own story, his meaning and purpose as God’s child in Christ. He rejected the harmony within Him obtainable through God’s grace. That harmony is the nature of freedom as God grants to us with that gift of logos or reason. True freedom is freedom voluntarily to serve God. Otherwise, we become slaves to sin and unfulfilled, as did the Prodigal Son. He lost his way and was living with the swine, bogged down in worldliness and materialism.

In our logos, which can also be thought of as our nous or right mind, the eye of the soul, we can become one with God’s grace, His uncreated energies. We can get our mind into our heart, as the holy hesychasts put it. Then we can also become attuned, as in Paradise, to the gifts or property in effect that God has given us in all of Creation. Otherwise, we face the captivity of delusion, ultimately leading to hell, a separation from God of our own devising. We need to come to ourself, as the Prodigal Son finally did, turning in desperation and at least a strand of faith to his logos and to his memory of God’s goodness.

Once in a particular low time years ago, I found myself facing personal crises of my own making, really struggling. On what I thought was a whim, I had entered a little Irish gift shop in Chicago in the evening and bought a Celtic Cross to wear around my neck. I believe that played a role in keeping me from larger tragedies in that long night of the soul. That night literally ended early in the morning with me sitting on my couch. I suddenly felt a sad presence with me and saw as if a phantom-like person sitting on the couch near me, mourning. I didn’t have any evil sense of that figure but just of its sadness at my state, weeping.

While this may just have been delusion, I felt that presence was like a sorrowful guardian angel, sorrowful for my sin. I had not been baptized yet, and the Church teaches us that it is at baptism that we are united with our guardian angel. We also learn as Orthodox Christians to be wary of any types of visions or dreams that can easily be demonic delusions. But perhaps as a kind of sign, it seemed to me looking back a foreshadowing of my guardian angel. I believed at the time that my almost thoughtless act of purchasing and wearing that Irish Cross earlier that night brought things to a head for me, as if the symbol of the Cross unknowingly to me had power, even in my pre-Orthodox state and not living a Christian life. Indeed, my journey to Orthodox accelerated unworthily from my low point that night onward.

Today we as a community of Orthodox Christians venture into a renewed journey, further into the Lenten Triodion, leading us all the way to Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ. Let us on our pilgrimage appreciate the inheritance given us by God of the logos — the reason, the story, the word, the purpose, the connection, the harmony, the principle of our life — and how it relates us to Christ and to His Creation. For all of ourselves and of Creation is found in Him, the Logos of our logos. In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and in the beginning was the Word, the Logos.

Our gratitude with a heart open to God’s grace, our cleansing with His grace our nous as the eye of our soul, enable us to wake up from delusion, to come to ourself. Like the Prodigal Son we can stop the wandering of our mind in demonic passions, and returning in good memories start our journey toward Pascha on the straight and narrow path that is the Way, Jesus Christ, in His Church.

Otherwise, when we reject the logos of natural law in our lives, we become fractured, our mind becomes one with harlots and demonic forces. In this state even the material pleasures we seek become ever less pleasurable as we seek more and more intense worldly pleasure or false comforts and delusions apart from God and His Church. The divine logos is no longer at work with us.

Our Lord’s natural law within us is not legalistic, it is a matter of grace, and so should be our approach to Great Lent and fasting. We should be strict with ourselves in fasting even as merciful to others, remembering that we must love in truth, and that means being not just kind in a way that can add to our pride at being a good person, but training like an athlete to be truly humble and to love others in truth that is more powerful than our ego seeking just to be a nice person.

We can move just a little to God, and He comes to embrace us with His love and grace already around and within us, no matter how long the night has been. Then we can help others do the same, through our example and prayers and deeper sense of God’s grace in our heart.

See how the father comes running to meet the prodigal son once he has made the decision, humbled, to return. Orthodox icons of the Parable show Jesus Christ Himself coming to embrace the Prodigal. The heavenly throne of Christ is depicted as empty. This is because in the icon Christ in His Incarnation is present embracing the Prodigal. He has come to be with us and at the same time He runs to meet us when we turn or repent to come back to Him.

Now being with us in the presence of His Church, in His oneness with the Trinity and in His Ascension He sits on the right hand of the Father also in human form, whence He reaches out to protect us when we turn and repent. Even when we sit in sin he reaches out to us, as even in my dark night of the soul before I was Orthodox. Let us unworthily through His grace imitate Him. Let us then rush to embrace those around us who want and need repentance, to find their own story or logos within the Orthodox Church. Thus in praying forward the gift given each of us, we will fulfill also that logos of love that our Lord intended, when He called each of us to be missionaries of the Gospel. As members of this mission we are by definition missionaries, each of us young and old, in Northern Appalachia and central Pennsylvania. All these centuries later, God still is running to embrace the Prodigal in each of us and in all our family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. The story or logos of God’s wonderful story for each of us is still unfolding, as His story of the Church has been blooming from Creation to the present day. Let the Sunday of the Prodigal Son remind us that this day, on the road to the adventure of Great Lent, is as a thousand years for us to repent and start anew in the story of our lives given to us in Him Whom we worship, Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Glory to God for all things!

***

The Reading from the

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§79 [15:11-32]

The Lord said this parable: ‘A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” And he divided unto them his estate. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine ate, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.’” And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, “Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.” And he was angry and would not go in; therefore came his father out and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, “Lo, these many years have I served thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.” And he said unto him, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”’

A reflection on the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, on the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, the start of the Orthodox Christian Triodion, 7532 (2024 civil reckoning), by a priest at St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Lewisburg, PA.

Last week in the Gospel for the Sunday Liturgy we met Zacchaeus the publican, and experienced his encounter with our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, which pulled him down from the sycamore tree he had climbed, and away from his old life. Today the lens extends out further, so to speak, to the Publican and the Pharisee together in prayer (the Gospel readings are copied verbatim here at the end). Today’s lesson teaches us that the most destructive form of self-love is pride, of ascribing our accomplishments to ourselves and not to God. It is a deep warning for us as we approach Great Lent, and in more ways than one.

To be sure, the Pharisee in the parable utters words of thankfulness to God. But his faith in his own accomplishments leads him to despise others and turns righteousness into that which is demonic, a lie, for he is idolizing or objectifying himself, and thus others as well. In the process, he even would seek sinfully to make an idol out of God. It is his comparison of himself to others that gives away his misplaced and terrible faith in himself, as Blessed Theophylact offers in his commentary on today’s Gospel.

 “I thank Thee that I am not as other men are… even this publican,” says the Pharisee. How can a man who knows that what he has he has received from God, judge others in this way, Theophylact asks? For if the Pharisee did see his accomplishments as from God, then he would know virtue as grace from God, not legalistic achievement, and not a basis for comparison with others. He would know himself, like Blessed Job, as naked having come into the world, and naked going out, blessed is the name of the Lord.

One of the achievements boasted of by the Pharisee was fasting. But fasting is a part of a larger living of asceticism in devotion to God, one in which all of us can participate, not just monastics, especially during Great Lent.  An Orthodox monk would not or should not boast that, I thank Thee that I am not like my brother. Rather he should say, as we all do in pre-communion prayers, I am the first among sinners seeking salvation through you, O Lord, in my community. A monk seeks salvation ascetically through great self-discipline in community with his or her fellow brothers and sisters. So should we, brothers and sisters, in our parish and family communities, our Church and our little church in the home, which is a different kind of community than a monastery but akin in faith and ascetic spirit. The main difference is that we in the world but in the Church are called to be missionaries of the Gospel first into our own hearts, unlike the Pharisees, and then in helping others find the Church, Fasting is training for that work even as athletes train, it is like limiting the carbon footprint of our mind, getting our mind into our heart, to build faithful community rather than to assert ourselves sinfully spilling our ego everywhere like the Pharisee in his demonic despising of the Publican.

When I was first on the road to becoming an Orthodox Christian, I am grateful that my parish priest told me, the Church is the hospital of the soul, and the monastery is the intensive care unit. You need to visit a monastery, he said, noting that I needed even more than urgent care. And I did. During my unworthy visits, one time as I have told some of you, I was complaining to a monk-priest there who became my spiritual father. A fellow student in my graduate school was mentally troubled. He would follow me on the street in our college town and exclaim loudly and repeatedly to me on the sidewalks in public: “You’re going straight to hell!” This holy father said to me simply: “So what? He’s right!” That put the situation in a new light. Likewise Dostoevsky, under the influence of the Optina Monastery elders, through some of his monastic characters famously expressed the view that we are all responsible in part for each other’s sins, despite who might be legally guilty. That’s because our lives are so entwined and we are so complicit in many ways with the sins of the world by our omission and commission. Asking God for grace to see this is a great source of the love we owe to one another.

We should not like the Pharisee distance ourselves from others by having faith in ourselves. We should give up on ourselves and instead give all to Christ and then to our neighbor in Him. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament that we use in the Orthodox Church, the blessed Job after his many struggles is told to pray for his friends who had turned on him, and to forgive them. When he does so, he has the fullness of his human life restored to him, and we are told that he will rise again in the resurrection. The Holy Prophet Job ascribed his righteousness to God and was saved by Him.

In our parable, the publican, like Zacchaeus whom we met last week in the Gospel reading, penitently gives his life over to the Lord. “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” he exclaims from the heart. The deepest cosmic music of the heart lies in that prayer. In fact, it is the basis of the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” Yet the Publican has kept his eyes lowered and smote his breast in ascetic penitence. He is aware of his sins, his compromises with the world, including his worldly identity as both an agent of Roman power and presumably someone working with public contracts through the corporations of his day. He is so penitent even as a public person whose persona is based on worldly success. In effect they have switched positions, the Publican and the Pharisee. The Pharisee, the supposedly religiously faithful man, has become the public person whose persona is based on a type of worldly success in religion. But the Publican has found true righteousness. Jesus’ teaching points to the truth that righteousness in the Church, the true Israel, is not religious but a way of life, indeed the Way, the Truth, and the Life, in the Person of Jesus Christ.

It is truly said, based in Scripture and Holy Tradition, that fasting must be from the heart, and not theater. The Parable illustrates this. But it warns us on the brink of Lent also not to be tricked into thinking that if we say we are doing various good things of our own doing, including even being kind to others, which itself also can be a source of pride, that we therefore do not need ascetic penance as written in the Fast on our own bodies. Bishop Luke of Syracuse, abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery, says, “force yourself!” If you can do nothing else in these latter days, be obedient to our Mother the Church and keep your mouth closed so to speak in fasting, as a small way of reminding ourselves how to fast also in greater and deeper ways of the heart. The Church gives us this coming week fast free as a reminder that our blessings come from God, so that when Lent begins, we should follow the Publican’s humility, rather than the Pharisee’s delight in his own goodness. We are weak but God helps. In living iconography of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, let us acknowledge in the coming Great Fast that all our accomplishments come from God, and pray for strength from Him. Fasting should be in that way like the training of an athlete so that the athlete can better help the team in humility.

With God’s help, may we look to the upcoming start of Lent in that spirit of repentance, brothers and sisters. Let us say with the blessed Job, naked came I out of my mother’s womb. We were reminded of this by the newly illumined baby Evangelina baptized yesterday, may God grant her many years. And naked shall I return. Some of us remember standing over the open body of our brother Noah throughout the night, reading the Psalter in Church, may his memory be eternal. The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away. I prayed in this spirit the night my sister died, and I unworthily stayed awake out of fear for my parents in their extreme grief, grieving penitently my own failures in not helping her more. And blessed be the name of the Lord. Recognizing our sins, giving up on ourselves to Christ, strengthening one another by encouragement and example, helping the stranger, may God prepare us for the season of our Lord’s resurrection and for our own, in His Body the Church. May we recognize that all our accomplishments and all good things are His.

Glory to God for all things!

***

The Reading from the

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§89 [18:10-14]

The Lord said this parable: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are: extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§24 [6:17-23a]

At that time, Jesus stood on the plain with the company of His disciples and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for there went virtue out of Him and healed them all. And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples and said, ‘Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in Heaven.’

Photo: Penns Creek

About 10 years ago I had an article entitled “Earth: A wandering” published in postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, a publication that grew from a then-innovative trend in U.S. medieval studies, adapting postmodern theory to premodern works of literature. Its center was a community that emerged from the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, MI. This trend was in many ways inspired and curated by a friend and colleague, Prof. Jeffrey Cohen, now Dean of Humanities at Arizona State University, at the time a professor of English at George Washington University, and a booster of my first book, Strange Beauty: Ecocritical Approaches to Early Medieval Literature. The article “Earth: A Wandering” reflects my work in that period, and that movement in American medieval studies, although as an Orthodox Christian scholar I was working with a somewhat different emphasis, considering how traditional and mystical aspects of early Christian thought might be explainable in postmodern terms. Among other colleagues, I also got to know Dr. Gaelan Gilbert in that effort, who is now Father Anthony in the Orthodox Church. I offer this copy of my article here as an artifact from that period in my work in environmental humanities, with also a caveat that from an Orthodox standpoint the quotation in it from Philip Sherrard should be weighed with the critique of Sophianism found in the writings of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco.

Homily from St. John Orthodox Mission Church, Lewisburg PA, Sunday Feb. 5, 7532 (civil calendar Feb. 18, 2024)

Zacchaeus was the chief publican, and Jesus took him prisoner, as the Blessed Theophylact notes in his commentary on today’s Gospel. As chief publican, Zacchaeus made his wealth through the tears of the poor, Theophylact notes. How common that is today still. Publicans then in the Roman Empire were tax collectors but also historically public contractors, making profits from government contracts, including tax farming. Often that work was overseen by limited liability share-holding corporations, not unlike corporations today. It was the entwined power of government coercion and corporate greed that made publicans such as Zacchaeus, the chief in the region of Jericho, rich. Yet Zaccheaus was, as Theophylact notes, captured by Jesus. He sought to see Him, Who He was, and as he was short he climbed up into a sycamore tree, which in that part of the world would have been more like a low-lying mulberry tree here.

Jesus seeing him in the tree called him down and went to his house. Indeed, Zacchaeus is mentioned in the prayers for house blessing. For like him we should run to have hour homes blessed by the presence of Christ at this time of year after Theophany when we look toward Lent. The rich and influential Zacchaeus humbled himself by climbing a tree, highlighting his small stature while making a spectacle of himself in being in effect a would-be public fan of Jesus. Yet receiving Jesus joyfully to his dwelling meant more than just being a sudden fan. It in a sense prefigured the Eucharist, in which we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the dwelling place of our body. Zacchaeus was never the same man. He said he bestowed half his goods to the poor, and would restore fourfold that which he had taken falsely from any man. Although others murmured at Jesus for going to the house of such a man, Jesus said salvation is come to his house, in that he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Zacchaeus surrendered his position of wealth and power not only to help the poor and those whom he had cheated but, according to Church tradition, to follow the Apostle Peter, and himself to become later Bishop of Caesarea in the early Church. He had become a disciple of the Gospel, as Theophylact notes, for he loved his neighbor more than Himself. For the Great Commandments had their origin in the Old Testament and include loving our neighbor as ourself. But Jesus added to this that we should love one another as He loved us, reminding us that no greater love is there than for a man to give His life for His friends, as He gave His for us. To love our neighbor more than ourselves is what Zacchaeus shows us. And this is the gateway to the Lenten Triodion, the liturgical period that begins next week with the three Sundays that form the front porch to Great Lent, so to speak. They all begin in a sycamore tree.

Now Zacchaeus proved himself a son of Abraham through his righteous faith and through his generosity or freeness shown to the poor and those he had wronged, even though Zacchaeus had worked for and made his fortune from the Gentiles of the Roman Empire. “Giving up on himself” became his freedom. Now salvation has come to his house and he is a son of Abraham, Jesus says, not by his biological ancestry but by his likeness to Abraham in character. God’s promise to Abraham’s seed extends in the New Testament to the Gentiles, the Church as the continuation and renewal of Israel as potentially including all, even former chief publicans like Zacchaeus. He climbed up the tree to be able to see beyond all the hectic worldly business that had engulfed his life heretofore. That tree became to him the Cross of His Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, Whom ultimately he came to serve as one of the first Bishops of the Church. He climbed up the Cross and then came down from the Tree of Life as an Apostle.

Like Abraham going out from the land of his father, Zacchaeus leaves behind his old life. He went out of himself and changed, Theophylact notes. The Byzantine Orthodox commentator also suggests that the fourfold payment that Zacchaeus gives to those he has wronged can be taken as symbolizing the activation of what the Fathers of the Church call the four universal virtues in his life. These are the virtues of Courage, Prudence, Righteousness or Contemplation, and Self-Control.

Notably, Zacchaeus according to tradition, went from Jericho, a center identified with the establishment of the old Israel, to serve as bishop of nearby Caesarea, a center of Roman rule in the region and a port that served as a gateway to the Roman world. In that city occurred what is sometimes called a kind of second Pentecost for the Gentiles, in the conversion of the Roman Cornelius the Centurion. The city, formerly home to a splendid winter palace of Herod and to Pontius Pilate’s headquarters, became another avenue for the Church of the New Testament to reach the world. It has reached us here in the middle of Pennsylvania in the 21^st century. With Zaccheus we can say, adapting the words of an old song, “Love was out to get me, that’s the way it seemed, disappointment haunted on my dreams. Then I saw your face, now I’m a believer.” Like the former chief publican, let’s climb a tree above the hubbub of our daily lives to behold Christ and humble ourselves in our public devotion to Him, tumbling down humbly to receive our Lord in our dwelling with joy, and changing our lives to be an Apostle in the Orthodox Church’s mission to America today. Unworthily it has happened even to me the sinful priest. The Lord will call to us and sup with us, and we with Him, as God willing we shall in His Eucharist today.

Glory to God for all things!

***

The Reading from the

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§94 [19:1-10]

At that time, Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus, who He was, but could not for the press of the crowd, because he was short in stature. And he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said unto him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.’ And he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying that He had gone to be the guest of a man who was a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore to him fourfold.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘This day is salvation come to this house, in that he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.’

[Homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Lewisburg PA for the 36th Sunday after Pentecost, Commemorating the Translation of the Relics of St. Ignatius the God-Bearer of Antioch, Jan. 29, 7532 (Feb. 11, 2024 on the civil calendar).]

St Ignatius of Antioch, according to tradition, was the child taken up in Jesus Christ’s arms, described in today’s Gospel readings (the texts of which are pasted at the end below), and would end his life testifying to Emperor Trajan in Rome how he went by the name Theophorus or “God-bearer” because he bore Christ within his heart as a result of that childhood encounter. We are told that Jesus met him outside of the historical lands of the people of Israel, in the region of Tyre and Sidon. This non-Jewish region had been home to the ancient commercial empire of Phoenicia, along whose lingering trade routes, according to one legend, traveled by Joseph of Arimathea from Judaea all the way to England in the early days of the Church. To the north where Ignatius came to live, in Antioch, the Bible tells us followers of Christ were first called Christians. There a Hellenistic or Greek community of Jews had flourished. Indeed, Ignatius in Antioch as he grew up helped provide a bridge between the society of Judaea, from which the Apostles emerged, and the Gentile world. His life ended, according to a traditional account, at the center of the Roman Empire, in Rome’s Colosseum, a vast venue of imperial spectacles not unlike our modern Super Bowl. There he reportedly died in glorious martyrdom assailed by lions before a mob of tens of thousands of people. Yet how brightly his light burns in Christ to this day, as we talk about him here now a world away, in rural Appalachian Pennsylvania. St. Ignatius’ life reminds us of how the Church continued and renewed the Old Testament Israel as the Israel of all Creation, including the Gentiles, who were not descended from Abraham or circumcised into the people of Israel under the Old Testament law, and unto the lands not yet known to the Romans, including ours.

It’s worth remembering, too, that the woman in our other Gospel reading is from Canaan, and Canaan was the name of the son of Ham indicted by Noah’s curse. The Canaanites were people of the promised land conquered by and influencing the people of Israel at times toward idolatry. Yet grace is extended to her by Jesus Christ. First, though, He challenges her by saying that ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Though she worshiped Him then and called Him Lord and asked His help, He answered and said, ‘It is not meet to take children’s bread and cast it to dogs.’

Yet the Greek term translated dog here is a word meaning little dog or puppy. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the regular Greek word for dog can be a negative epithet, referring to gross immoral depravity, as in Revelation referring to wild dogs outside the walls of Christ’s City, the New Jerusalem. But here the term puppy summons an image of a little animal lacking training but perhaps with potential and appeal, less than fully human in Christ, but humbly needing to be trainable, like all of us as struggling Christians. This image conveys the strong sense of potential service, loyalty, and love, which domesticated dogs have exhibited for millennia as “man’s best friend.” That friendship is perhaps one of the consolations given humanity by the Lord in our fallen state on earth. I can attest to this as we have just this weekend had a new golden retriever puppy come to visit our household, which lost our 13-year-old dog this past fall. The new arrival is at once trainable, demanding in both the training he requires and his baby-like needs, and adorably already a friend.

However, when the New Testament uses the regular form of the Greek for dog, not in the diminutive as Jesus uses it here, but such as the Apostle Paul does in Philippians, it can refer to a spiritual predator. This draws on negative views of dogs as wild scavengers found in the old Middle East. Indeed, having formerly belonged to a Greek parish, I noticed cultural differences in attitudes toward dogs among some from Mediterranean backgrounds, as compared to those of barbarian northern European ancestry such as my own. In cultures shaped in long winters, it was more common culturally for dogs to have the run of the house. Historically they played a working role in herding and hunting and defense. But dogs are not allowed in Orthodox churches while cats (at least in monasteries) have a certain privilege as less brash rodent catchers, though in a restricted way and never in the altar area. Meanwhile in modern times there are valid criticisms of Global Westerners who sentimentalize pets as accessory-like replacements for children, spending large sums of money on them that could go to the poor.

But Jesus uses the diminutive form meaning puppy, open to a slightly different range of interpretation from just dog, and including for us both the negative and positive potential. The Canaanite woman responds, on behalf of all of us not genealogically descendants of Jacob (and perhaps not even “cradle” Orthodox Christians!), by recognizing the truth of the man she worships as Lord and His divine power. She says, ‘Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’ ‘Great is thy faith,” our Lord tells her, ‘be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ And we hear that her daughter was made whole from that very hour, for she was also asking for help not for herself but presumably for a child.

In a sense this reminds us that we as faithful are like puppies, needing to be trained by our Lord to realize our full humanhood. We don’t need to hold to mortal labels as obstacles or even grievances, such as in her case being Canaanite or even a woman, but need to uphold the true freedom offered us in Christianity of service to God and neighbor. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” Jesus said. In the Orthodox Church, freedom is found in voluntary service to universal truth, as the Orthodox philosopher Semyon Frank wrote. That universal truth is in the divine person of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Frank summed up that Christian definition of freedom, so different from today’s false notion of freedom as self-assertion, from a life of being trained, so to speak, as first a puppy for Christ in the Orthodox Church, and then a humble chastened Christian, whose writing has been praised as that of the greatest modern Russian philosopher and a Christian existentialist of note, although he remains little known today. Frank was born a Jew in Tsarist Russia outside the Church, and grew up in a family revering Jewish law. Yet he found in Christ the fulfillment of the law in the salvation and the love of the Person of God the Son.

Converting to Orthodoxy and marrying an Orthodox woman, Frank became one of the liberal intellectuals who turned to challenge the rising atheism and radical anti-Christianity of Russian elites before the revolution. Forced into exile with his family by the Bolsheviks, he re-settled in Germany. But then came the time when the racism of Nazism forced him and his family to flee due to his Jewish background. Frank and his family relocated to Paris. But then Paris was conquered by the Nazis. His family had to scatter, and he ended up living in the countryside in occupied southern “Vichy” France, trying to avoid interrogation by the Gestapo, sometimes sleeping in a barn. He never had a comfortable academic position like other philosophers and never was well known. But he had his faith as an Orthodox Christia, and wrote magnificently in an age of intellectual unbelief and existential angst about freedom as voluntary service to the Truth, Jesus Christ.

Yet how far, as he would admit, philosophy must fall to her feet before Christ, titling his greatest work The Unknowable.

To exemplify such humility, Christ long ago hailed little Ignatius the child. ’Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth Me; and whosoever shall receive Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me,’ meaning God the Father. The type of leadership in service this implies for Orthodox Christians reminds us also of the important living symbolism of marriage in the Orthodox Church. The Bridegroom becomes a symbol of Christ, and the Bride of the Church, the ekklesia, the assembly of the people in worship. The Apostle Paul wrote of the husband as the head of the household, but also said the husband needed to follow Christ in laying down his life for his wife and family. As we were told by the priest before our marriage, even more than love and respect, commitment is required in Christian marriage—commitment to one another in Christ in the Church. Growing into leadership in service is exemplified by the role of parents in a Christian family, our little church. This is available to all of us as we grow in faith under the guidance of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, where through Christ’s tutelage we can grow from puppyhood so to speak to become “wise as serpents but harmless as doves.” But like St. Ignatius with God’s help we hope never losing that grace of humility upheld by Christ. On Holy Thursday at cathedrals and monasteries in the Russian Orthodox tradition, the greatest of hierarchs wash the feet of a dozen priests or monks in emulation of Christ. At my ordination, the Bishop’s whispered instruction to me was not to lose either zeal in the Holy Spirit or humility.

Our Gospel readings today remind us too of the need for humility in dealing with others claiming to cast out demons in Jesus’ name. While we know that the safest place for salvation, where we must strive to bring all our neighbors and family, is the Orthodox Church, and we know that demons deceptively try to counterfeit miracles outside of it, at the same time we must be humble in our approach to those helping their neighbor in Christ’s name. We must remember that we are kings and priests unto God as Orthodox Christians. But our leadership in that sense also must be one of humble service when interacting with others. We are not ecumenists in that modern heresy. We must not accommodate but answer heresy. We must reject betrayal of Christ even unto public martyrdom if so called, as did St. Ignatius the God-bearer. But we also recognize that God’s will is a mystery beyond us. As we grow from puppydom into full humanity in Christ, God willing, our focus must be on evangelism, as missionaries in our Orthodox mission parish and the ongoing Orthodox mission to America, beginning with our mission to ourselves. We evangelize first through our daily prayer and fasting, regular preparation for and participation in the mysteries of the Church, and service to others in Christ’s name, including especially to those who may be labeled Caananites outside the Church yet are our brothers and sisters in need of salvation within Her protecting embrace.

Thus we learn from our Master, the head of our Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who washed the feet of his disciples in humility before giving His life for all of us. In the Eucharist He gives us unworthy children His most holy and precious Body and Blood.

Glory to God for all things!

***

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew,

§62 [15:21-28]

At that time, Jesus went into the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same region and cried unto Him, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David! My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.’ But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and besought Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she crieth after us.’ But He answered and said, ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord help me.’ But He answered and said, ‘It is not meet to take children’s bread and cast it to dogs.’ And she said, ‘Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘O woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Holy Gospel according to Mark,

§41 [9:33-41]

At that time, Jesus and His disciples came to Capernaum; and being in the house, He asked them, ‘What was it that ye disputed among yourselves on the way?’
 But they held their peace, for on the way they had disputed among themselves as to who should be the greatest. And He sat down, and called the twelve and said unto them, ‘If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all and servant of all.’ And He took a child and set him in the midst of them. And when He had taken him in His arms, He said unto them,  ’Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth Me; and whosoever shall receive Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me.’ And John answered Him, saying, ‘Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, but he followeth us not, so we forbad him because he followeth not us.’ But Jesus said, ‘Forbid him not, for there is no man who shall do a miracle in My name that can lightly speak evil of Me. For he that is not against us is on our side. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in My name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.’

A reflection on the Gospel Readings, Sunday Jan. 22, 7532 [Feb. 4, 2024 civil calendar, 35th Sunday after Pentecost and Sunday of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia], by a priest at St. John’s Russian Orthodox Church, Lewisburg, PA.

A brave Civil War general, trapped in a doomed cause as a devout heterodox Christian, was asked why he was so famously impassive in battle, unafraid. He reportedly answered: ”Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.

If a heterodox believer in a doomed secular cause could express such courage based on faith, then why not more so we as Orthodox Christians? On this Sunday of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, who most bravely died for the cause of Truth in Christ, the Gospel readings for Liturgy (offered in full at the end below) tell us indeed this is so.

In the account of the healing of the blind man (Luke 18:35-43), we are told that he calls out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Blessed Theophylact in his commentary notes that as a child of Israel, this man knew the Messiah would be the descendant of David, and together with asking Jesus for mercy, recognized his divinity. Then Jesus says, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” “We may learn from this,” Blessed Theophylact writes in his ancient Byzantine commentary, “that when we ask in faith, God does not give us something other than what we ask for, but the very same thing.” But that, the Orthodox commentator says, is when we ask in faith and make a good request. Jesus’ voice, we are told, “proceeding from Him Who is the true Light, became light to the blind man.” And the gratitude of that faithful man became a light of evangelism to others. May it be so in our lives, for we are members of a mission, and thus called to be missionaries, if we use our faith aright, to receive our requests in prayer.

Think of it, brothers and sisters. The blind man was alone in isolation, begging, perhaps feeling abandoned by all, as the multitude rebuked him, telling him to be quiet. The second Gospel reading today (Luke 21:12-19) likewise tells us that we as Orthodox Christian missionaries will be reviled and persecuted, betrayed by family and friends, hated by all for Christ’s name’s sake. But not a hair of our head shall perish, we are told. Blessed Theophylact wrote of this passage that Jesus is saying, “You will be saved and not destroyed at all, even though it will seem to many that you have been destroyed. You must only endure patiently, and in your patient endurance you shall be able to gain your souls.” The enemy, the devil, trying to overwhelm us with terrible things, especially in these latter days, brothers and sisters, will receive our patience as a ransom for our souls. He can only kill us physically and for a time, not our souls, and our patience will enable us to endure. Patience is a word related to passion and with a meaning of suffering. It reminds us of the passion of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ for our sake.

“In patience possess ye your souls,” Jesus Christ tells us.

The Civil War military leader mentioned at the start is considered on the wrong side of history from a secular standpoint, and in his heterodox religiosity we also can consider him so from the standpoint of Orthodox Christianity. But in another way, we can speak of ourselves as Orthodox Christians in a good sense as on the wrong side of history. That is meant in spiritual terms, not politically, but impossibly and otherworldly, yet incarnationally at the same time. After long periods of persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire that seemed the trajectory of “normal” history, Emperor-Saint Constantine the Great suddenty received a vision of the Cross, that he would conquer in that sign. He did, and he released the Christians from the catacombs and made it legal to be of the Orthodox faith in the Roman Empire, in a way completely unexpected to the world, like Jesus’ healing of the blind man in the Gospel reading today.

As a result of St. Constantine’s miraculous conversion, the city of Constantinople arose as the Second Rome, the great Christian metropolis of the world for around a thousand years. Later, likewise, Moscow would claim the title of the Third Rome. From Russia, preserving as a rising major country, would emanate Orthodox Christianity around the world, including first to North America through Alaska, and then during the persecutions of Communism, when our own autonomous Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia became headquartered in New York City. Russian Orthodoxy spread globally in those persecutions, and indeed that is why our mission is here today, because of the patience of the faithful who went before us, as our Lord called forth in the Gospel today. Our priests today trace their ordinations in apostolic succession back all the way to Metropolitan Antony of Kiev, who became the first First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad in 1920, along with other bishops in Russia, who together trace their spiritual ancestry back to the Apostle Andrew in Kiev. So do all baptized in our Church.

The last Christian Russian emperor, Tsar-Martyr Nicholas, and his family, were brutally killed in a basement, shot and stabbed a multitude of times, alone and derided and humiliated by a faithless society in the name of atheistic progress, little more than 100 years ago. This was considered part of a “normal” if cruel trajectory of history. But something spiritual happened there on the wrong side of history. Today they are revered as saints, candles flicker around the world and around the clock before their venerated icons, and their captors and their system are rightly derided. The martyrs’ faith has spread to many countries, while Russia remains, despite its many lamentable sins, the one major nation today with an overtly dominant Christian civic culture, a switch from the Cold War indeed.

In CS Lewis’ Narnia story The Silver Chair, the witch tells the clownish character Puddleglum that all he thinks is good, including Aslan, a figure of Christ, is a fantasy, together with whatever good he thinks is in Creation from Aslan. It is all a delusion, she says. The awkward Puddleglum bravely rejects her, with heartening words unexpected from his tongue-tied self:

“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But [us] babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.“

Puddleglum in the Anglican Lewis’ story says he is ready to die for those good things and the truth in them, even if she and everyone else in the mob tries to force him to say it is all fantasy.

Orthodoxy offers the real empirical experience of Christ, Truth, in the Church that He founded, however foolish that may appear to a materialistic world that in modern Western delusion tends not to recognize the legacy of Byzantium, the reality of apostolic succession, living Tradition, or embodied hesychasm in Orthodox praxis, of the “one holy apostolic and catholic Church.” Truly mortal kingdoms rise and wane. The Church outlasts all of them and offers us the Kingdom of Heaven in Jesus Christ. Meantime Jesus tells us in the Gospel that he will give us a mouth and wisdom to voice the truth bravely to the mob of worldly thought, and to patiently possess our souls.

History has a long curve toward justice, another famous American said. But justice in Orthodox Christian terms means, as in New Testament Greek, righteousness. It is our struggle to be right with God that is met by Him in synergy, which lifts us up and turns us around and turns us inside out, to be in harmony with the Logos, Christ our God, and then desires to give others the same opportunity. Like the blind man in the Gospel account we start to see. Our isolation drops behind. The mob no longer can terrorize us. Rather, we know ourselves free, made, like Creation, in Christ, the Divine Logos, and we run to tell others. Jesus Christ the Logos gives us the words we need and the wisdom patiently to be free, free to voluntarily serve Christ, all together with one another, here in Christ’s Church. For He, our Lord, is, as he told us, more than mere human words, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Glory to God for all things!

***

The Readings from the Holy Gospel according to Luke

§93 [18:35-43]

At that time, as Jesus came nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging. And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried, saying, ‘Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!’ And those who went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace, but he cried out all the more, ‘Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!’ And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, ‘What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?’ And he said, ‘Lord, that I may receive my sight.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘Receive thy sight; thy faith hath saved thee.’ And immediately he received his sight and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

§106 [21:12-19]

The Lord said to His disciples, ‘Beware of men, they shall lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, and you will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake. And it shall turn to you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand what ye shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. And ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kinsfolk and friends, and some of you they shall cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated by all men for My name’s sake. But there shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls.’

Homily from St. John Russian Orthodox Mission Church, Lewisburg PA, on Jan. 8, 7532 (Jan. 21, 2024 on the civil calendar).

After Theophany Homily

The Gospel passage for today (copied at the end below) tells us that when our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ had heard that the Forerunner John, his cousin after the flesh, was cast into prison, He departed into Gallilee. There He dwelled at Capernaum on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Now Capernaum became a headquarters of sorts for Jesus in his three-year public ministry, a base for much of his work. (To give an idea of its location, the Sea of Galilee was located about the same distance from Jerusalem as our mission’s building site in Winfield, PA, is located from the Orthodox monastery in White Haven, PA.)

Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee is described in the Gospel, in a quote from the Holy Prophet Isaiah, as on the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim. Those were two ancient names for areas that had been part of the lands of the so-called lost tribes of Israel, those taken into captivity by Assyria shortly after Isaiah’s time. In Jesus’ time, in Galilee of the Gentiles, those were old terms rarely used. The Gospel text seems to emphasize the relation of this area to both the Gentiles and the lost tribes of Israel, that is to peoples outside of Judaea and outside those communities commonly known as Jews in that day. In other words, it was helping to set the stage for the renewal and continuity of Israel as the Church, the Body of Christ. As the old American Gospel song puts it, “put your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee.”

The Gospel itself notes: “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Jesus’ call to repentance picks up and fulfills that which the Forerunner had proclaimed. Indeed, the Forerunner is called sometimes the last of the Old Testament prophets although he appears in the New. He would take the message of repentance all the way to Hades where again Jesus would fulfill it in His Harrowing of Hell, preaching to those who had died before His Incarnation, on Holy Saturday. In relation to what is said further in the Gospel about Capernaum, where Jesus often lived and worked, it is well to remember that John was imprisoned for calling King Herod and his royal family to repentance due to their marital immorality, their disregard of God’s law and its boundaries set for human flourishing. It was news of John’s imprisonment that immediately preceded Jesus’ departure to Galilee of the Gentiles, we are told, to Capernaum.

The Church Fathers commented significantly on the Gospel today, although it is a relatively short passage. St. John Chrysostom wrote of the moral meaning: That Jesus here gave us the example of not going to meet temptations, “but to give place and withdraw ourself. For it is no reproach, the not casting one’s self into danger, but the failing to stand manfully when fallen into it. To teach us this accordingly, and to soothe the envy of the Jews, He retires to Capernaum; at once fulfilling the prophecy, and making haste to catch the teachers of the world: for they, as you know, were abiding there, following their craft.”

St. Jerome wrote, “Mystically interpreted, Christ begins to preach as soon as John was delivered to prison, because when the Law ceased, the Gospel commenced.”

Later in the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus remarks (Matt 11:23):

“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”

St. John Chrysostom wrote very sharply of the ancient sin of Sodom. Yet worse than it, according to the Gospel, is spiritual apathy and inattention to the Gospel, as at Capernaum, a place central to Jesus Christ’s ministry.

How much this is like our own day and age here in America.

Certainly the types of carnal sins of worldliness and violation of God’s law for marriage, which the Forerunner encountered and that Sodom exemplified, are rightly condemned. They go against the harmony of the divine Word embodied in the Church, which redeems and transfigures us sinful humans in the path of theosis, by God’s grace in synergy with our ascetic struggle. Yet the worse sin, Jesus offers, is complacency and apathy toward the Gospel. How do we in our own lives reflect such complacency and apathy, even as Orthodox Christians, in relation to our prayer life, our true love in dealing with others or the lack thereof, in terms of participating attentively in worship services, and engaging in mission work to save others lovingly? Capernaum is condemned, because, even though it witnessed so much of the work and teachings of Jesus, it lapsed into such lukewarm apathy, condemned also among the Laodicean Christians in the Book of Revelation.

In America, recent survey data indicates a desperate situation for two mainline Protestant denominations in the US that for generations helped anchor the Protestant civil religion of the U.S. Of 45 American Presidents, the two highest numbers of religious affiliations were 11 Episcopalians and 8 Presbyterians, which historically had mainly WASP and Scots-Irish ethnic backgrounds respectively. Recent survey data indicates that today for every Episcopalian in America in junior high or high school, there are ten who are at least 65 years old. In the largest Presbyterian denomination, PCUSA, for every child according to survey information there are eight people in the 70s or above. Being old is not bad—in Orthodoxy we honor elders! — but such figures reflect demographically the apathy and complacency of the heterodox establishment of faith in the U.S., which is reflected in severe moral struggles of American culture.

We know that the Orthodoxy in North America faces demographic challenges, too. But the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, survey data indicates, has been in recent years the fastest growing Orthodox jurisdiction in the U.S., thanks to small missions like ours, Glory to God! But we must not follow Capernaum and Laodicea and let pride and complacency cloud our hearts. Our urgent mission is to evangelize America and save our neighbors, starting with our region.

When Bishop Luke ordained me to the priesthood, right there at the altar as I was kneeling before him, he whispered two priceless words of instruction for all of us Orthodox Christians: Do not lose your zeal in the Holy Spirit, and, do not let yourself succumb to pride. Brothers and sisters, we are all called to be priests and kings unto God, as the Evangelist John has relayed to us in his book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Let us not lose our zeal in the Holy Spirit, let us not succumb to pride, for together those two spiritual losses are related, and complacency is the result, the type of lukewarmness that plagued the Church at Laodicea.

Instead, let us rise renewed by Theophany. May the baptism of the Lord be again our re-baptism and further dedication. Let us invite friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, and inquirers, to our services and Bible study. Let us sweat in our prayers to do so, as our Lord is said to have sweat like blood in the Garden of Gethsemane for us. We were bought for a price, let us be good servants in helping to save others lovingly, too, with God’s grace.

Christ is Baptized! In the Jordan!

^***

Today’s Gospel reading according to Matthew, Chapter 4.

¹² Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;

¹³ And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:

¹⁴ That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,

¹⁵ The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles;

¹⁶ The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Words of Wisdom on the Day of Theophany, from St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, and Metropolitan Philaret of ROCOR of blessed memory.

Photo: First-ever blessing of the Susquehanna River at the Lewisburg Landing on Theophany this year.

Homily given at St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, Lewisburg PA, on Theophany, Jan. 6, 7532 [Jan 19, 2024, civil calendar]

Today let’s hear words of two holy men on the occasion of Theophany, our patron St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco the Wonderworker, and Metropolitan Philaret of blessed memory, former First Hierarch of our Russian Church Outside of Russia.

From St. John:

Today the nature of the waters is sanctified. Today the Son of God is baptized in the waters of the Jordan, having no need Himself of cleansing, but in order to cleanse the sinful human race from defilement. Now the heavens open and the voice of God the Father is heard: This is My beloved Son. The Holy Spirit descends upon the Savior of the world, Who stands in the Jordan, thereby confirming that this indeed is He Who is the incarnate Son of God. The Holy Trinity is clearly made manifest and is revealed to mankind.

The waters of the Jordan are sanctified, and together with them all the waters of creation, the very nature of water. Water is given power to cleanse not only the body, but also man’s whole soul, and to regenerate the whole man unto a new life through Baptism. Through water all of nature is cleansed, for out of water the world was made, and moisture penetrates everywhere, giving life to everything else in nature. Without moisture neither animals nor plants can live; moisture penetrates into rocks, into every place in the world. The waters are sanctified and through them the whole world, in preparation for renewal and regeneration for God’s eternal Kingdom which is to come.

Every year on this day the glory of God is revealed, renewing and confirming what was accomplished at Christ’s Baptism. Again the heavens are opened; again the Holy Spirit descends. We do not see this with our bodily eyes, but we sense its power. At the rite of blessing, the waters which are thereby sanctified are transformed; the become incorruptible and retain their freshness for many years. Everyone can see this- both believers and unbelievers, both the wise and the ignorant.

Whence do the waters acquire this property? It is the action of the Holy Spirit. Those who with faith drink these waters and anoint themselves with them receive relief and healing from spiritual and bodily infirmities. Homes are sanctified by these waters, the power of demons is expelled, God’s blessing is brought down upon all that is sprinkled with these waters. Through the sanctifying of the waters God’s blessing is again imparted to the whole world, cleansing it from the sins we have committed and guarding it from the machinations of the devil. Today the Holy Spirit, descending up on the waters when the Cross of Christ is immersed into them, descends up on all of nature. Only in man He cannot enter without his will.

Let us open our hearts and souls to receive Him and with faith cry from the depths of our souls:

“Great art Thou, O Lord, and marvelous are Thy works, and there is no word which sufficeth to hymn Thy wonders.”

And selections from a homily on Theophany by Metropolitan Philaret, considered by some to be a saint:

On the feast day of the Theophany, the Baptism of the Lord, every Orthodox Christian would do well to remember another baptism, the one performed over each one of us Orthodox Christians, the baptism in which each of us, through the mouths of our Godparents, gave God an oath that we would always renounce Satan and his works and would always join with, “unite with” Christ.

I repeat, this is especially fitting for this day. Now we will begin the ceremonious rite of the great blessing of the water. Its center, one might say its main part, is the grand prayer in which the Lord is glorified and the grace of the Holy Spirit is invoked upon the water which is being blessed. This prayer begins with the wonderful words: “Great art Thou, O Lord, and wonderful are Thy works, and no word doeth justice to the praise of Thy wonders.” Those who have attended the rite of baptism and listened carefully know that this prayer for the blessing of the water in which a person is to be baptized begins with the same words, and the first part of this prayer is performed in the same way as during the great blessing of the water. Only later, in the last part, does the prayer change at the completion of the Mystery of baptism, which is composed for this Mystery, as a new human soul is to be baptized.

It would be worth remembering the promises made during baptism on behalf of each one of us. When a person is baptized as an adult, which happens these days sometimes but happened much more often in ancient days, he makes these oaths himself, but if he is baptized as a child, his Godfather or Godmother make these promises—they are the “adopters,” as the Church calls them. And these promises, in which the Christian makes a promise to God to renounce Satan and all his works, and joins with, unites with Christ, are not only forgotten by people, but many do not even know about them or that they were spoken, and that they must think about how these promises are to be fulfilled.

What if on the last day of the history of mankind, the Day of Judgment, it turns out that a person made some promises (or that promises were made on his behalf by his Godparents), but he doesn’t know what these promises were? What will happen with such a person? Think, brethren, what it means to renounce Satan and all his works and to unite with Christ.

The time has come when mankind has been consumed with activities which displease God, in which the Enemy of mankind reigns, and, as they said in old days, this Enemy makes everyone dance to his flute. This fuss and bother, which envelops our daily lives, is distasteful to God, and God is absent from it, and the Enemy of God is master and ruler of it. If we gave the promise to renounce Satan and all his works, then we must fulfill it, and try not to crush our souls with daily cares, remembering what the Church teaches: “there is one thing needful,” only one thing necessary—to remember that we must unite ourselves with Christ, that is, not only fulfill His commandments but to try to unite with Him.

Think about this, Christian soul, on this bright and great feast day, think about it and, as you pray that the Lord sends you staunch faith and the decisiveness to fulfill these promises, do not drown in the daily cares of this world and thereby lose your bond with the Lord, with Whom you promised to be united forever.

Today’s holiday is called the Baptism of the Lord, or the Theophany, but those who know the Church rule well know that it is also called “the feast of the holy Theophanies” in the plural.

Why? Because of course, the central commemoration of this feast day is that the choir sang the words “God the Word shone forth in the flesh to the human race.” The Incarnate Son of God, of Whose birth only a few knew at the time, “shone forth to the human race,” for His baptism is as His ceremonial appearance in His service, which He performed until His death and resurrection.

But at the same time, today’s holiday is also noteworthy, as is sung in the troparion, because it is during this very holiday that “the worship of the Trinity was made manifest.” All three Persons of the Holy Trinity for the first time appeared in Their distinctness, which is why this is called “the feast of the holy Theophanies.” People heard the voice of God the Father “This is my Son, the Beloved, with Whom I am well pleased,” the Son of God received baptism from John (meanwhile, we know from the Gospel that John the Baptist, distraught when the Savior of the world came to him, tried to refuse), and the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove descended from the Father to the Son. In this way, “the worship of the Trinity was made manifest,” and that is why the Church sings this in the troparion, and calls this holiday “the feast of the Theophanies.”

Christ the Savior appeared in order to commence His salvific service. Not long ago, we celebrated another great feast day here, the Nativity of Christ, when we spoke about how the Lord in His birth in a poor cave, condescending to lie in a manger for beasts, emphasized His rejection of any earthly glory or vanity and pomp, for He did not appear in a royal palace or mansion, but amid such humble surroundings. He showed right away that He was bringing to earth a new beginning, the beginning of humility.

Note how He was, in a way, true to Himself, how today, on this great fast day, He also brings humility to us clearly and without a doubt. For where did He go? To Jordan. Why? To receive baptism from John. But sinners were the ones who came to John, confessing their sins and receiving baptism. Yet He was without sin, “untouched by sin,” absolutely free of it and pure, and yet he humbly took his place among the sinners, as though He were in need of cleansing by water. But we know that it was not water that cleansed Him, Most-Holy and sinless, but that He sanctified water by consenting to be washed by it, as we sang today during the blessing of the water: “today the nature of water is sanctified.” So Christ brought to earth the beginning of humility, and was devoted to it throughout His earthly life. But there is more. He also left us the commandment: “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls”….

See how many conflicts we have, even within the church and within our parishes? Because everywhere the stoked passions of human pride cause strife, and if we only had humility, towards which the Lord calls us, we would have none of this.

Let us learn, brethren, from our Savior, Who like the last of sinners went to John in order to be baptized by him, let us learn from this God-loving and aromatic good, without which, as the Holy Fathers said, no other good deed can be performed. Amen.

A homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Lewisburg, PA, from Sunday Jan. 1 7532 (Jan. 14, 2024 on the civil calendar).

Today we commemorate the Circumcision of Christ, the Feast of St. Basil the Great, and the old new year on the civil calendar. These conjoin in our three Gospel readings (texts at the end below).

For the Circumcision of Christ is a living reminder of the new life of the Baby Jesus, our Lord and God and Savior, as fully God and fully man. A baby boy, he not only took on flesh but in His family was subject to the Jewish law of circumcision, which Church Fathers regarded subsequently as superseded by Christian baptism following the teachings of Jesus Christ. For whoever has been baptized into Christ has put on Christ. Yet Jesus as a baby suffered it so to be now to be marked in the flesh by the circumcision that God had instituted in the Prophet Abraham’s time as a marker for Old Testament Israel. The Israel of the New Testament, the Church, would share a marker for all peoples regardless of ethnicity, race, or nation, and for both men and women. In this, we too mark babies with this fulfillment of the symbol of circumcision in baptism, and the feast of circumcision today points directly to the major feast of Theophany, the baptism of Jesus, in just a few days.

Now, St. Basil the Great as we know is one of the three Holy Hierarchs of the Church, an inspired teacher, preacher, and bishop. Of the work in the fourth-century Church of the three hierarchs, a tropar verse writes, “the honey-flowing rivers of wisdom, flooding all the creation with streams of divine knowledge.” The image reminds us too of flowing rivers of right teaching, Orthodoxy, in the blessing of the waters at Theophany. St. Basil is mentioned first among them in liturgical verse, and he in many ways exemplified what has been called the Hellenic-Christian synthesis of the Byzantine era. It signified in Christian culture a recognition of the union of the human and divine in the person of Christ, exemplified by the circumcision of Christ. St. Basil famously said that we should be like bees gathering nectar from the letters of the pagans to make Orthodox honey so to speak. In other words, we can gather and transfigure the learning of the non-Orthodox world for the benefit of all. His writings on the Creation of the world in Genesis upheld Orthodox acceptance of the scriptural account while also engaging the ways in which God can be glimpsed in His Creation, the so-called book of nature. He also in his canons set forth the idea that war is always unjustifiable even when it is necessary. This distinguished the Orthodox idea of the necessary war from the Western idea of the just war or Crusade.

Then there was the Basiliad,  a philanthropic project he founded before the gates of Caesarea, which functioned as a combination of poorhouse, hospital, and homeless hostel. He was a most reluctant bishop because of his dedication to service both in worship and to his community. May we as a mission church aspire to that kind of service to our community overflowing from our worship of God in the future, on our church land or elsewhere locally. It was echoed by St. John of Kronstadt in modern Russia in his work with the urban industrial poor of imperial Russia. Brothers and sisters, let us follow St. Basil’s following of the God-man in caring for our fellows, our neighbors. The loaf known as St. Basil bread, traditionally shared by the community at this time of year as we are doing today, is a reminder of his dedication to Christian service in community, what the Russians call sobornost after the Greek koinonia or communion, and the basis of community in Creation in the gifts of God’s grace to us. We say prayers over the loaf asking for blessings of the new year, we take pieces, and one of us find a coin as a symbol of a special blessing according to the folklore-tradition, in this case an Irish coin appropriate for our convert congregation (and our own Rector Emeritus Father Claude found it appropriately, many years Father!). Afterward, we adjourned to the basement of our rental hall to participate in a combination Christmas skit by our young people and Christmas caroling (although the leave-taking of Nativity was yesterday, the 12 days of Orthodox Christmas so to speak continue through Theophany, when God willing we will bless the Susquehanna River, and themes from Theophany entered into our Liturgy today).

Our feast today is linked in all this celebration of new beginnings also to the old new year as it is called in Russia, the new year of the civil calendar on the Julian calendar. It is a reminder that although we have our own holy Church calendar, God’s time overlays the regular time of human society as well. The Church fathers have indicated the different senses of time and beyond-time that overlay our life as Christians. There is the natural time of the cycle of the seasons that we experience now in winter, and there is the human time of society with our cell-phone and digital calculations of time. The eternal time of God’s creation lies in the realm of angels, and demons, and the human soul. Yet brothers and sisters, all of these are encompassed by and touched by and sustained and redeemed by the beyond time of God, the everlasting of the uncreated divine energies.

When the priest blesses the new incense in the censer frequently during our worship service, he prays aloud quietly: “Incense do we offer thee O Christ our God as an odor of spiritual fragrance. Accepting it upon Thy most heavenly altar, do Thou send down upon us the grace of Thy most Holy Spirit.”

May it be so in this new time in the birth of Christ, this new year, which now points us toward Theophany and the baptism of Christ, and beyond to Holy Week and Pascha, His suffering and resurrection. May our humble offerings of prayer as incense each day unworthily be accepted upon the heavenly altar of God, His Church, for He is a Good God and the lover of Mankind.

Glory to God for all things!

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark,

§ 1 [1:1-8]

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the Prophets: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.”’ John baptised in the wilderness and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judea and those of Jerusalem; and they were all baptised by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a girdle of a skin about his loins, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, ‘There cometh after me One mightier than I, the strap of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptised you with water, but He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost.’

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§6 [2:20-21,40-52]

At that time, the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the Child, His name was called JESUS, who was so named by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. […] And the Child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him. Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the Feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and His mother knew not of it. But they, supposing Him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. And when they found Him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking Him. And it came to pass that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. And when they saw Him they were amazed, and His mother said unto Him, ‘Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? Behold, Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.’ And He said unto them, ‘How is it that ye sought Me? Knew ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?’ And they understood not the saying which He spoke unto them. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. But His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

Holy Gospel according to Luke,

§24 [6:17-23a]

At that time, Jesus stood on the plain with the company of His disciples and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for there went virtue out of Him and healed them all. And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples and said, ‘Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in Heaven.’

Nativity Homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, Lewisburg PA. Dec. 25, 7532 (Jan. 7, 2024 on the civil calendar).

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

The Anglo-Irish writer C.S. Lewis wrote of Christmas that “Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.”  Indeed, Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia climax in a stable scene, meant to be reminiscent of the manger of Jesus, symbolically in his parable containing the Creator God and the whole Kingdom of God. So, too, did the Mother of God’s womb contain the God-man, and so too the Church today is the dwelling of God in the Eucharist. Our modest little temple in the country outside Lewisburg, beneath the stars on Christmas night, will soon God willing have something in it that is bigger than our whole world, the Eucharist with the Body and Blood of Christ present.

Truly “God is with us” as we sing at Christmas.

St. Justin Popovich, a great modern Serbian saint, wrote this about Christmas:

“Only through the God-man Christ is man a divine majesty and the highest value to God in all worlds. For this reason God became man, and has remained the God-man for all eternity. With the God-man Christ, all that is God’s has become man’s, human, ours, so that each of us individually and all of us assembled together in the Divine-human body of Christ, the Church, might become god-men, having attained ‘to the perfect man, to the masure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:12-13)…. Truly this is ‘great joy’—truly the only true joy, the only eternal joy of a human being in all worlds…. On account of all this, the Nativity of Christ is our only eternal Joy: the Ultimate Joy. The Joy of all joys, the Joy above all joys. Therefore again and again: Hristos se rodi! Christ is born! The God-man is born! Our deification is born! Our Divine-human transformation is born!”

And our mission’s saint the Holy Hierarch and Wonderworker John of Shanghai and San Francisco wrote this for a Nativity back in 1953 as he served as Bishop in Western Europe, reviving the veneration of the old Western saints in the Orthodox Church worldwide. Our St. John wrote:

“He who created man in His own image and likeness has now become a man Himself and dwelled among men. He came to earth to take man to heaven. The Lord came to save everyone and call everyone to Himself. But He appears to people in a way that is accessible to them…. The shepherds hurried to Bethlehem, and having come to the Infant lying in the manger, in outward misery they recognized the King of kings. They praised their Creator, glorified God, praised by angels in heaven, and on earth accessible to every person. Magi from the east rushed to the newborn King in Judea, leaving their countries and all their worldly cares. Brought by a star to the Infant, they sensed in Him to be the eternal God. Falling down, they worshiped Him, brought Him gifts from their earthly treasures, and burned the delusions of their minds with the fire of faith that illumined their hearts.

“The depth of the riches and wisdom and mind of God was revealed before them. “He Who reigns in heaven on high” out of mercy came to the man He had created. Sitting in glory on the throne of the Godhead for ever and ever, holding the scepter of righteousness, the scepter of His kingdom, for our sake He humbled Himself to the point of being a slave.

“From time immemorial, the eternal Word and Son of God, through whom everything that exists received being, became flesh. God, whom the angels cannot look upon, appeared in the flesh, appeared to the angels and settled among people. Greatly rejoice, O heavens! Dance for joy, O mountains! Christ is born, the powers of heaven rejoice, and the earth rejoices with man. The heavenly powers of the Lord and Master proclaim to the world the birth of the Savior. Today, every creature rejoices and and is glad, as Christ was born of the Virgin Maiden! Come, Christ-bearing people, let us see a miracle that terrifies every mind, we see the descent of the Divine and, having cleansed our minds, let us bring forth virtues – instead of gold, frankincense and myrrh! He appeared in the world, and the world knew Him not, that He may enlighten those who are in darkness. Thou hast appeared as a sinner and publican for the multitude of Thy mercy, O our Savior, Lover of mankind, glory to Thee! Come all, let us rejoice in the Lord!

“The starry sky is still shining above us. Let us open our spiritual eyes and see that the heavens will reveal the glory of God. Let us open the ears of our hearts and hear the voice of an angel calling us to worship the Newborn. All kinds of joys are fulfilled today: who for our sake, a Young Child was born, the eternal God! Christ is born!”

God came for us. Across the millennia He came for us. He comes for us. The Good Shepherd, he came for each of us lost sheep, and time and space are no barrier for Him in shining His love upon us and for His personal touch.

Truly it has been said that thousands of babies have become kings in human history, but only once did a king become a baby, in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. There is a reason that the Orthodox Church traditionally measured years not in A.D. as in the Catholic West, the Year of the Lord, which is inaccurate in its measurement from Jesus’ birth anyway, and that was probably several years earlier than the later measurement used for the civil calendar. Instead, the Orthodox Church, as in Old Testament Israel, measured years traditionally by the chronography of the Bible from the time of Adam and Creation. This is because, as we are told in the start of the Gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word.” And in the start of Genesis “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.” In the Logos, Christ, the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. We all exist, we all are born and re-born, in His love and truth, in Christ our Lord, and in the mystery of His birth in Bethlehem today. O come let us adore Him!

Thus our Christmas procession through downtown Lewisburg as part of our worship today is a mini-pilgrimage: The young and old, the catechumens and inquirers, the founding members and the new, passing through life together as a Church family, a snapshot of God’s provision for the growth of our mission since 2015. Beyond, the procession includes those not able to be with us and those in the whole history of the Church across millennia and around the world, including the saints who go before us and with us. It is an ongoing journey and, this year, God willing, our walk in faith and worship together will lead us to our new Church temple and home. May the Lord bless you all at this time of new birth, dear Church family, as we feel him born anew in our hearts!

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

And from our family to yours, Merry Christmas!

Father Paul